


You don't own me (do you?)

by Multifandom_damnation



Series: Brothers, Remember? [7]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Body Image, Brotherly Affection, Gen, Heart-to-Heart, Implied/Referenced Torture, Minor Keyleth/Vax'ildan (Critical Role), Minor Percival "Percy" Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III/Vex'ahlia, Past Torture, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 00:13:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18435026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: In Percy’s modest opinion, and was probably the opinion of the majority of people who knew him, he was absolutely disgusting.His body was littered in scars, most of which were dealt while he was under the scalpel of Doctor Anna Ripley, a woman who could scarcely call herself a doctor, and he hated each and every one of them every time he looked in the mirror.But the one he hated most was the scar on his hip with her initials carved into this skin, the signature that claimed in bold that she owned him and his body long before Percy even knew what that meant.(AKA Vax catches Percy staring at all the scars in the mirror and hating himself and he won't leave until he makes his friend feel just a little bit better)





	You don't own me (do you?)

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is a weird, stupid little fic and I was really supposed to be finishgin things in my WIPS folder instead of writing new things but I just couldn't get the idea out of my head. I think this was supposed to go another way but I forgot halfway through and I just made do. I hope you like it x

In Percy’s modest opinion, and was probably the opinion of the majority of people who knew him, he was absolutely disgusting.

He stood in front of the mirror, nothing but his thin undergarments and even then he was only wearing his pyjamas with the butt-flap, and he traced his fingers over the faint, white scars that he didn’t need the mirror to see. He remembered when most of them were carved into him, or how he had been too careless, or how he had deserved them.

His hand, as it often did (always did) trailed down to his hip and he used the tip of his nail to trace the cursive calligraphy of Anna Ripley’s signature that she had permanently branded into his skin with the sharpness of her blade, the same way she had carved her thoughts and into his head with the sharpness of her wit.

Weak. How weak must he look to be standing half-naked before a mirror with his hands tracing a permanent reminder of the failed man who never lived to see the light of day? The man- the boy really, the boy who wanted to be a man but only ended up getting way over his head- who died in that room on the blood sticky table and was dragged back to the cells to join the rest of his deceased, rotting family. Percy was no longer that boy- so why did he feel like it?

Who did he belong to, if it wasn’t to himself? Surely, he belonged to his city, to Whitestone and to the honour that being the ruler of such a city bestowed, and he belonged to Vex more than he would ever admit and Vox Machina had somehow managed to tear him apart and put him back together just right, so he had to owe them some part of himself, right? But why was Anna Ripley’s signature the one carved into his skin, and not the looping letters of Vex’halia, or the V.M of the world’s mightiest group of fuck-ups?

It was Anna’s name on his skin. And even back then she told him that Percy would forever belong to her, always be her little pet, her plaything, the toy she would always go back to when she was bored and needed to see the colour red taint the white of his skin, but Percy would never believe her. He always knew that one day he would be free. But now, with his reflection staring back at him, Percy was forced to wonder how much of him escaped that room that fateful day, and how much of him was back there, struggling and screaming and begging any god that would listen to set him free?

_Disgusting._

There was a familiar knock on the door and Percy turned partially towards it without moving too much to make sure his voice was heard. “Come in, dear.”

Percy watched them enter from the reflection in the mirror, and for a moment he thought that the half-elf who had joined him in the room was just his lover, her hair free from its braid, but then they approached him and yes, Vex was quiet and swift and sneaky, but she was not her brother. Vax stopped short when he took the sight of Percy, almost in the nude, one hand down his pants, standing alone before a mirror. A rather impractical position to be found in, Percy considered. “Oh, uh sorry. I had expected you to be decent, I wasn’t aware I should have asked first. I thought the question was implied.”

“My apologies. I was expecting your sister.” Percy said honestly because it was true- he wouldn’t have given Vax permission to enter the room yet if he had known which sibling it would be but he couldn’t even find it within himself to be vain about his lack of clothing. “Was there something you needed?”

“Uh, no. No really.” Vax had slowly come closer, hands in his pockets and like Percy, his eyes were on the mirror to help alleviate the awkwardness of the situation. It wasn’t really helping. “You looked a little… off, at dinner tonight. I just wanted to come and check to see if you were alright.”

Was he? Percy could hardly remember what had transpired at dinner, all he knew was that his skin was itching and his thoughts kept going back to that dreaded room and the iron table and the scalpels and screams and blood. “I’m sorry if I made you worry. I suppose I’m just… thinking about what the world was before everything went to shit. Thank you for coming to check up on me, though.”

“It’s no problem,” Vax said. That seemed like the end of the conversation but Vax still didn’t move, but he had pulled his eyes away from their reflections in the mirror and now looked at Percy directly. “Do you… do you want to talk about it? Whatever you were thinking about at the table seemed really hard on you. If there was anything you’d need to get off your chest, just know that I am always here.”

“Thank you. That is a very kind offer.” And it was, but Percy was half listening to Vax’s strangely kind words but mostly focused on the mirror. It was only when Vax turned to leave, sensing the conversation to be over, that Percy decided to elaborate. “Do you know what it’s like to be owned, Vax?”

The rouge paused in his tracks and turned to face Percy with a raised eyebrow. “I do. The Raven Queen has control of my very soul, remember? She decides how long I have with you all and whether I live or die.”

Percy knew where Vax was coming from, but he still shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. If you counted being owned by a god in the divine sense, then Pike would also be that to her god and we all know that Pike takes orders from no man.”

“Do you feel… as if you are owned?” Vax asked tentatively and Percy could understand why.

“One could argue that I belong to your sister- that she has me on a very tight leash,” Which was true, but not the point Percy was trying to get at. “It could also be argued that I belong to _my_ sister, which is true, but not the point. Vox Machina, which all of Tal'dorei knows, has owned my soul from the moment we met. But no that… that’s not the point.”

Vax was looking at him as though Percy might consider jumping out the window, and Vax would have to dive after him to catch him. “What is the point then, Percival?”

“My body has belonged to _her_ long before I understood it.” Percy was shocked at the hatred he could hear in his own voice. “She took something that was unquestionably mine and made it hers in a matter of moments and ever since that day, ever since she carved her name into my body I never would have ever considered-”

“Hold on, Freddy, are we talking about Ripley here?” Vax had been shocked out of his stupor and now stood beside Percy and slowly moved a gentle hand to his lower back. Vax felt his friends entire body shaking. “Because if we are, I feel like we’ll need to sit down. And have some sips of that flask of yours.”

Percy allowed Vax to steer him over to the bed and sit him down with a steady hand still on his back. “I belong to her in more ways than one, Vax. It is a reality that I struggle with but am forced to accept.”

“That’s not true, Freddy,” Vax said gently. He didn’t like the dim emptiness in Percy’s eyes. “That’s not a reality you have to accept. She never owned you. You are your own person and it’s your life- not hers.”

“Her name is scarred into my flesh, Vax.” Percy hissed. “She took my personhood and laughed at it like I was nothing and played with my body like I was nothing but her plaything. I child’s favourite doll.”

“But she’s gone, Freddy. She’s gone. She’s dead.” Vax insisted.

But Vax didn’t understand. Would never understand because his devotion to the Raven Queen and to Keyleth and to Vex was all well and good but Vax _chose_ to follow them. He chose to follow blindly wherever they may go. He would never understand the disgust Percy felt when he looked at himself- at the scars that covered his already pale skin. Percy hated every inch of himself because when he closed his eyes and thought back to a time that felt not that long ago, he could still feel her hands on him and the cool stinging before the blinding pain of steel warmed by his skin.

Vax would never understand because Vax, regardless of what he often said, was still his own person. Percy didn’t know who he would be without Anna Ripley in the back of his mind- and he hated it. “I have always belonged to someone,” Percy whispered to the ground, his eyes stuck to his discarded clothing, bright blues and golds against the dark mahogany of the floorboards. “The Briarwood’s. Ripley. Orthax. Someone vile has always had ownership over me- over my soul and my body and my mind.”

There were a million things that Vax wanted to say to his friend, but judging from the look on Percy’s face, none of them was the right thing to say. “But as I said, they’re all gone. You have your life back and it belongs to nobody but you.”

“A woman has carved her initials into my skin, Vax,” Percy said. “The same way the Raven Queen has carved her intent into your soul. It is the same thing, though for some foolish reason I could never quite understand, you willingly agree to this loss of individuality and follow her every wish as though you are nothing but a toy for her amusement.”

“Is that what you think you are?” Vax asked. He knew Percy was distressed and wasn’t thinking clearly, so he tried to keep the hardness out of his voice. “A toy for the amusement for a dead woman?”

Percy sighed, low and heavy and long and Vax felt like the weight of the world was seated precariously on those shoulders, and sooner or later the world would topple and everything would go to shit. “Am I not? Even dead she has managed to ruin me and I fear… I fear the damage she dealt is not irreparable. I doubt even your sister could fix me at this point. I am… more than just a broken man or a wounded soldier. I am worse than any of that.”

“Your will is still your own,” Vax tried. “If you want to believe that you belong to the woman that tortured you and ruined you inside and out then that is your choice, but listen to me, Percy, you are the Lord of Whitestone. You are owned by nobody.”

“In the same way that the Raven Queen has her claws sunk into your body, so too does Anna Ripley have her tools sticking out of my skin,” Percy said. Why couldn’t Vax understand? “I dream of her at night and think of her during the day. Her name was not just carved into the barrel of my gun. She has branded me hers. Everyone who sees me will know that I am owned by that horrible woman.”

Vax ran a hand down his face. “The bitch is dead, Percy. You have nothing to worry about because she’s been ripped apart to nothing and you’re free of her.”

“How weak must I be to have given by being to a manic in the guise of a doctor,” Percy said to no one in particular. He removed his glasses and held them in one hand as he dragged his hand up the side of his face until it came to rest with his fingers tangled in his hair. “The Lord of Whitestone. What a joke. My family must be laughing at me from whatever utopia they were sent to in their afterlife.”

Sighing, Vax tentatively rubbed Percy on the back and was pleasantly surprised when he didn’t pull away. He knew that Percy was right- his thin frame was littered with the white lines of healed scars and most of them were too precise and neat to be gained from battle. From the position, they were sitting and how low Percy’s pyjama pants were sitting on his hips, Vax could very clearly see the cursive letters _A.R_ surgically implanted onto his skin. “I think your parents would be very proud of you and all that you’ve accomplished,” Vax said honestly. “And it is in my humble opinion that you are one of the strongest people I know. Not Grog strong or Pike strong, but you have more resilience and determination and grit than anyone I know, despite being a stick of a man.”

“I am the only human in this family of ours,” Percy sounded so defeated that it hurt Vax somewhere deep inside him. “And the only confounding magic I am capable of is that which was granted to me from the leftover influence of a demon. I am not strong like Keyleth. I am not you or your sister. I do not have wit like Scanlan. I build things and often get hurt in the process but when I die it will just be another human who got way too over his head.”

“I will be dying before any of you, Freddy,” Vax reminded. “None of you will be dying at all if I have any say in it.”

“Ah, yes,” Percy sighed. “But I shall be a very close second.”

Vax wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say to that because despite how much he hated the very notion, he knew in his heart of hearts that it was true, so instead he brought his free hand down to gently cover the looping curves of the scar on Percy’s lip like he did in his workshop at a time that felt so long ago. This time Percy did flinch but he bit his lip resolutely and didn’t pull away. “If this thing… disgusts you so much, makes you hate the very person you are so deeply, then you could always get it covered up.”

Raising an eyebrow, Percy turned to the half-elf, confused. “Covered up? I don’t think I can cover it up more than I already do.”

Pulling his hands away, Vax tried to quickly go through the tedious motions of undoing all the clasps on his armour around his arm until he was able to his arm out of his tunic and present to Percy the tattoo of the antlers on his bicep. “I have nothing to hide, but getting this helped me in part remember what it is that I am fighting for. I think that maybe if you got one then you could cover up her mark and feel more… in tune with your body.”

Percy seemed to think for a second, eyes glued to the image permanently tattoo’s onto Vax’s arm for a long time before he nodded slowly to himself. “That is… a very smart idea. Although, I’m not quite sure what image I would get. I am not a very… materialistic person.”

“Why don’t you get the de Rolo crest?” Vax suggested and smiled at the way Percy’s eyes lit up. “Or a bow and arrow, or some bright blue feathers to appease my sister? I’m sure she’d love you forever if she saw that on your skin forever.”

“I… yes,” Percy’s lip’s turned up in something almost like a smile. “That is a brilliant idea. I shall… think about it. Thank you, Vax.”

Vax clapped Percy on the shoulder and the noble was actually forced forward slightly at the kindly force of the impact. “Don’t sweat it, Freddy. I’m always here for you if you need it, and so are the rest of Vox Machina.”

“Yes,” Percy chuckled. “I believe you’re quite right.”

**Author's Note:**

> As you guys know by now I'm really shit at tagging so if there are any tags you guys think I should fix or add, please let me know. Thanks for reading x
> 
> (And yes, the title was in part taken from a song in the Suicide Squad soundtrack, don't @ me)


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